Midland hasn't escaped blight of plastic bags

Published 7:10 am, Tuesday, January 17, 2012

It only takes a short drive around our city to realize that we have a real problem with plastic bag litter. This is seen easily even after a massive cleanup effort just a couple of months ago.

If you think this is a problem unique to Midland, think again. Cities all across the nation are seeing a marked increase in litter, especially in the form of disgarded plastic bags. These bags have become the new symbols of urban blight. And no one is escaping a landscape covered with the lightweight plastic bags that get snagged in trees and bushes, pile up in streets, clog drainage systems and endanger wildlife.

Cities across the nation are fighting back. San Francisco was the first city to ban plastic bags. Several other cities in California, as well as Edmonds, Wash., Westport, Conn., Portland, Ore., and Seattle have followed suit.

Texans also are fighting back. Brownsville enacted the state's first plastic bag ban last year. South Padre Island has joined the crusade, and Fort Stockton has become the first West Texas town to adopt a ban.

Austin soon will have a public vote. If the measure passes, the capital would become the largest Texas city with a plastic bag ban. Fort Worth currently is monitoring bans in other cities before declaring its own war on the bags.

Some environmentalists say that despite recycling efforts, millions of bags end up in the environment, where they take decades or centuries to decompose. But supporters argue that the bags are useful, can be reused, offer shoppers more convenience, take up less space in landfills than their paper counterparts and provide countless manufacturing jobs.

Midland has not escaped the imprint of the bags. We have to find a better way of keeping our city clean. At this point we're not going to call for ban on plastic bags. While a ban certainly would help, it would change the way residents do things and would have a significant impact on grocery stores and restaurants.

Even with all the changes a plastic bag ban would cause, people eventually may tire of picking up the bags off our roadways and empty lots.

Hundreds of cities across the state and nation are taking up the challenge of removing the blight of plastic bags. We wonder if Midland will be far behind?